


A Valentine's Day Mystery at 221b

by Laurali_fangirl_of_221b



Series: 14 is a Special Number [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 07:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1183295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurali_fangirl_of_221b/pseuds/Laurali_fangirl_of_221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I plan for this to hopefully be a monthly installment series, posting around the 14th of each month. Comments and suggestions are welcome!</p></blockquote>





	A Valentine's Day Mystery at 221b

John hit the alarm clock, blinked, staring at ceiling and sighed. It was Valentine’s Day. Again. The day that always drove Harry to drink and John to cringe. He stared at the ceiling, God the clinic was going to be positively unbearable today. He would have to face Sarah. Urrgg. John sighed again, rolled out of bed, and plodded down the stairs to the kitchen. He made himself a rather strong cuppa of earl grey. After all, he was going to need it today. Sherlock was sprawled out on the sofa in his thinking pose. John sat in his armchair and reached for his laptop. “Tea?” Sherlock held out his hand expectantly.

“Make your own sodding cup of tea.”

Sherlock rolled over to face him, looking at him down his nose. “What’s with you then?” He asked in his bored voice.

“It’s Valentine’s Day,” John said gruffly into his cup of tea. 

“Valentine’s Day?” Sherlock asked intrigued.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know about Valentine’s Day.”

“Must have deleted it.”

“Valentine’s Day, February 14th,” John was exasperated. “A holiday devoted to couples and relationships and flowers and candy and sex and it’s absolutely miserable.”

“Sounds very pedestrian.”

“Yeah, well I’m off. Got to get dressed and head to the clinic.” He rose to leave, Sherlock had already gone back to thinking.

John suffered through the day at the clinic as best he could. Sarah had to leave early; she had a date with some new bloke. John almost refused to cover for her, but she was radiating excitement and kept asking him what he and Sherlock were doing. There was only so many time he could say: For the last time, Sarah, I am not gay and Sherlock is asexual. She always just looked at him like he was being completely and utterly unconvincing. He let her leave early partly to shut her up, but also because she looked so happy and he liked Sarah, she deserved to be happy.

Finally, it was 4:30 and John took the tube home. There were a couple of teenagers snogging in the corner of the carriage and no matter how many times John cleared his throat they were still going at it when he got off at his stop. 

On the stoop of 221 there was a boutique of flowers, John picked them up and inspected the tag. To John. No from tagline. Hmmm. It appeared he had a secret admirer. How juvenile, yet at the same time, John was oddly thrilled. He opened the door and Mrs. Hudson was standing there, dressed for going out. 

“I thought I heard you… Oh!” She exclaimed clapping her hands. “Are those for Sherlock?”

“What? No! Mrs. Hudson, For the LAST TIME. Sherlock and I are not together!”

“Whatever you say, dear. I’m going out with a rather nice chap from book club. Don’t wait up,” She winked.

Even bloody Mrs. Hudson has a date! John sighed. Harry hadn’t called yet. That must mean that she’s dating someone new and hadn’t had a chance to muck it up yet. Well at least he had a secret admirer. Jesus, middle school all over again. Sherlock hadn’t moved from the couch, still in his thinking pose, fingers steepled under the chin.

“Sherlock! We have a case!” 

That caught his attention. “What?” He turned his head.

“Someone left me flowers but didn’t leave a card.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes “How utterly mundane.” He resumed his thinking. John went to make a cup of tea and put the flowers in water. Who could it possibly have been? He ticked through all the women he knew:

1\. Sarah was a definite no, she had a date that day after all.  
2\. Jeanette was another definite no, the last time they’d parted she had slammed the door of her flat in his face and told him to piss off.  
3\. Molly-no. She was entirely still smitten with Sherlock.  
4\. Donovan—no. She and he got on all right but she was not the flowers type. Or at least not with him. She still regarded him warily, as someone would regard one who was a tad cracked. According to her logic, you’d have to be cracked to be living with Sherlock Holmes.

John resumed listing, running through the rest of the options. None of them made even the slightest possibility of something resembling sense. He sat down and pulled out his laptop which had migrated from the kitchen table where he had left it, back to the coffee table. Proof that Sherlock had in fact, moved in the eight hours he had been gone. He browsed through his Facebook looking for likely suspects. There weren’t any. Maybe it was one of the readers of his blog, maybe… He groaned aloud.

“Sherlock, I know you might consider it beneath you but someone left me the flowers and the not knowing is driving me mad. Besides knowing you, it’ll take all but two seconds and I’ll never figure it out at this rate.”

“No you won’t,” Sherlock agreed. Then he went back to being silent, seemingly retreating back into the recesses of his mind palace.  
John glared at the steepled hands. 

After what seems like hours, Sherlock threw up his hands. “John, I can feel you brooding from across the room. Would you please stop thinking or leave the flat?”

John didn’t respond.

Sherlock finally threw up his hands a second time, this time in defeat. “All right, fine,” he huffed in a pained monotone. 

John perked up instantly. “Really? Who sent them?”

Sherlock sat up, gesturing in a sweeping motion towards the flowers. “Are you really such an idiot? You see but you do not observe.”

“Enlighten me then.”

“Look. What kind of flowers are they?”

“How should I know?”

“John, we have an extensive library and with several rather large books of botany. Really, I mean you’re a doctor, yet you can’t be expected to know even the most common of garden flowers.”

John bristled at that. “Alright then,” he said retrieving the large book from the end of the shelf. “If you insist on being a utter pedantic prat!”

An hour later, John looked up and rubbed his eyes. “Foxglove. Conium and I think I know the last one, but it’s mad, I must be wrong.”

Sherlock looked really bored. John swallowed. “Opium.”

“You are correct, John.”

“Bloody hell. Who would give me opium?” John’s eyes widened.

“I hardly see why you are focusing on the opium.” Sherlock had resumed thinking. “Think, John, think, what do all the flowers have in common

John thought about it and leafed through the book again. His eyes grew wider still. “Christ. Poison. They’re all poisonous. Someone was trying to kill me.”

Sherlock snorted. 

“What?”

“Really John, I didn’t realize that it was customary to ingest the flowers one receives on Valentine’s Day. If they wanted you dead they would have laced the boutique with some airborne lethal substance like ricin.” John startled. He hadn’t thought of that. Sherlock smiled. “But we’re not dead, obviously, or hallucinating, although this conversation is indeed has a certain circular air to it, so I’m can’t be entirely certain…”

“But what message were the poisonous flowers supposed to send? And who sent them? Who? Sherlock help me out here!”

“I did.”

John nearly fell out of his chair. “What?”  
“It would never have done to have you moping about all night feeling sorry for yourself, emanating pitifulness that would inevitably clog up my trains of thought.” Sherlock explained as if all of this was perfectly logical. “And it did appear to keep you occupied for the better part of the night.”

John stood up. “I can’t believe you would do that! I mean, did you even think for a second about how this would make me feel? Any what on earth did you mean by sending poisonous flowers? Opium? Sherlock, are you insane? Where you trying to relapse?”

“It takes more than a few flowers to send me over the edge. Please John, my self-control is not that fragile.”

“Why though? Why the poison?” 

“I did some research and roses are so booooring.” Sherlock drawled the word as if it was a curse. Knowing him, John realized it was a  
curse. “I decided to give you poisonous flowers because poison is interesting, and you, John are far from ordinary.”

John was a taken a back. “I thought I was the idiot.”

“Of course you’re an idiot, almost everyone is. But you are not the usual idiot. You are,” He bit his lip searching for the right word,  
“different.”

“How so?”

“Really John,” Sherlock looked peeved now, as if John was purposely being difficult. “How many people do you know would put up with body parts in the fridge and me playing the violin at all hours?”

“Not many,” John admitted. 

“Precisely.” Sherlock nodded. “You’re still here John. You’ve stuck with me.” He swallowed. “You’ve changed me, John, but I don’t mind.”

John gulped, “Sherlock,” He began, “You know I’m straight…”

Sherlock scoffed, “So you say, personally I don’t have much evidence.”

“Ex-excuse me?” John stammered. 

“No need to be offended, merely a scientific observation. Since we’ve known each other, you have not had a single lasting relationship with a woman.”

“Oh and whose fault is that?” John raged. “You always muck it up and interrupt with my dates with cases.”

“John, you do not have to answer to my beck and call. You choose to.”

John was nearly purple. “Sherlock Holmes, you insufferable prat!”

Sherlock got up and advanced towards the door. “Sherlock! Where are you going? I wasn’t finished!” He raced after him and caught his arm just as he opened the door. “You utter git!” John whirled him around and promptly kissed him.

Sherlock startled. John pulled away, stared into those hopelessly gorgeous eyes and laughed. Sherlock’s expression was somewhere between surprised and severely confused. It was hilarious. John giggled.

“Why are you laughing?” Sherlock tone was one of the overtly perplexed. 

“Imagine that,” John wheezed. “The ordinary John Watson puzzles the great mind of Sherlock Holmes.” 

“As I said before, John, you are many things but you are far from ordinary,” with that Sherlock stooped down and kissed John again.

Kissing Sherlock, or rather being kissed by Sherlock was amazing. As kisses went, it was not perfect. It had obviously been a long while since Sherlock had kissed anyone. He was all over the place, timid yet they still managed to bump noses once or twice. No, it was not the mechanics of the kiss, it was the significance of the kiss. Sherlock Holmes was kissing someone and not for a case. More importantly, he was kissing John. John allowed all the feelings he had been repressing for months about Sherlock back into his mind. Bad idea. With the rushing of feelings, all the blood in his body seemed to decide to rush one direction as well.  
Sherlock jerked back from the kiss awkwardly. John felt terrible. “I’m- I’m sorry. It doesn’t mean anything, er-just a normal reaction to kissing-.”

Sherlock ran a hand through his hair. God his hair, it was perfectly tossled. Focus Watson! He internally commanded himself. “John- er- you have no need to apologize. It’s just I haven’t done this sort of thing in, well, a very long while. I’m a bit out of practice. I mean if you want sex- I suppose-“

John cut him off there. “No! I mean at least not now. Jesus Sherlock. I get it! We can go slow. As slow as you want. Besides, it’s not like we have any reason to rush. We have an eternity.” He smiled.

Sherlock smiled back, a real, rare smile. “I rather like the sound of that. After all, you are one of the only things that has held my interest since the moment I laid eyes on you. Happy Valentine’s Day, John.” He timidly reached for his hand.

John beamed and laced his fingers through Sherlock’s. “Happy Valentine’s Day indeed.”

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> I plan for this to hopefully be a monthly installment series, posting around the 14th of each month. Comments and suggestions are welcome!


End file.
